


why (not) you

by khirimochi (NekoAisu)



Series: FFXIVWrite 2020 [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Dark Knight Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Dark Knight | DRK (Final Fantasy XIV), Dialogue Heavy, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Gen, Light Angst, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26306758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/khirimochi
Summary: “G’raha said something similar, once.”
Relationships: Esteem (Final Fantasy XIV)/Original Character(s), Esteem/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Series: FFXIVWrite 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1906210
Kudos: 9





	why (not) you

**Author's Note:**

> FFXIVWrite 2020 Day 4: Clinch
> 
> DRK questline but I bullshit all of the Esteem lore for serotonin

“What is it you want? What could you possibly gain from  _ lying  _ to them that you do not already have? Answer me, Fahmi. Answer  _ us.  _ You cannot lie to yourself like this.”

He does, though. He lies from between gritted teeth with a tongue made heavy by fear. “‘M not lyin’ to them,” he says and knows it is the opposite.

He can’t fight his own mind. There is no way for him to grapple with it as he would an opponent. His hands would only catch on nothing, slipping desperate and dreamlike through his inhibitions and mistakes. 

Esteem looks at him, tall and scaled and terribly foreboding, and asks, “But you would think you can to  _ me?  _ I  _ am  _ you. I will always know when you refuse to be truthful.”

He can fight  _ them,  _ though. He could lock blades or hands or  _ souls  _ like he is not tearing himself apart piece by piece in the process. 

There is little to do other than dream of clinching it and demanding Esteem listen. Not when he has quests to complete and people to return to.

(Not when there are expectations still sitting heaped upon him like he is the world’s beast of burden. If he threw them off, what would they think?)

“Why… why do we look so different? You used to be the same as me,” he says, grasping at straws to avoid facing his own behaviors. It isn’t a ridiculous thing to ask after watching them metamorphose the more he develops his Darkside. 

They no longer share a face (or a body, or a name), but they are still somehow the same. Between the horns and the height, the other portion of his heritage seems fit to make itself known in the only way it can. 

Fahmi Nikephoros, the ill-blessed Champion of Hydaelyn, is still the same odd-faced child he was at birth. He does not consider his biological mother to be family—that is an honor reserved for the troupe that adopted him for weal or for woe—and still hasn’t located his father. From the look Sidurgu gave him upon hearing that he may have been Orl, there is a nearly impossible chance he is still among the living. Somehow, the thought is not all that upsetting.

It isn’t as if he had stayed to meet him. If he had, maybe they could have been a family. 

“That isn’t here nor there,” Esteem says evenly. “I will ask again, why do you lie? Speak up for yourself. They will  _ have  _ to listen.”

“I won’t force them.”

“Ah, but you forget,” they say with a humorless laugh, “that you are only half of the whole.  _ I  _ will do it for you.  _ I  _ will speak up for you when you see fit to be a coward. Remember what I said before, Fahmi?”

He fiddles with his ring (the House Fortemps one he wore back before Haurchefant died for him, not his wedding ring. That affair was killed by his own hand) and tries to find a response that is not incriminating. Even one word feels too raw. 

“Yes.”

Esteem smiles, edges of their lips drawing back from the wicked points of their teeth. “For where else could I go?”

“Who else could I love but you?” he finishes, looking down at the symbol on his ring. “G’raha said something similar.”

“I know,” they say, “and I urge you to take it to heart. Not all who call you by your title are blinded by it.”

He sighs, finally looking them in the eye, and breathes, “Yeah. I know.”

When he blinks, they are no more. He dreads the next time they will speak with the same anxious nausea he gets before losing a fight. 

There is nothing left to do but wait and keep lying.

**Author's Note:**

> Hmu!!  
> Twitter [@khirimochi](https://twitter.com/khirimochi) OR [@TheHolyBody (NSFW)](https://twitter.com/TheHolyBody)  
> Tunglr @[Main](https://kiriami.tumblr.com) OR @[FFXIV Imagines](https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com)


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